Activities and affiliations

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1934–1968 ✕ Killed in crash

The first human smile to leave the Earth

Re-entry: the capsule engulfed in 3,000-degree plasma, ten Gs pressing on his body. Inside, Gagarin whistled — Shostakovich's "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows." He later wrote in his autobiography: "I sang that song the whole way down to Earth."

A collective-farm carpenter’s son circled the planet in 108 minutes on April 12, 1961: “Poyekhali!”, let’s go. In the middle of the Cold War he became the one man both camps loved. Training for a return to space, he died in a MiG crash in 1968. He was thirty-four.

Economy, finance and planning Affiliation unconfirmed 1934–1997 ○ Natural causes

Architect of the 500 Days programme, radical reform economist who tried to convert the Soviet planned economy to the market in one leap

It is not a question now of saving socialism, communism or any other -ism, it is a question of saving our country, our people — at a Party Central Committee plenum, 1990

Born near Leningrad. A student of Kantorovich, he advanced input-output modelling and optimal planning theory, became a full academician (1987), and Academician-Secretary of the Economics Department (1989). In 1990, under Gorbachev and Yeltsin's joint mandate, he led the working group that drafted the '500 Days' programme for market transition, a radical plan directly opposing Abalkin's gradualism. Not adopted at Union level but partially implemented in Russia, it became the intellectual foundation for his student Gaidar's 1992 shock therapy. After the collapse he headed the 'Reforma' foundation, helped found the United Democratic Party, and served as honorary president of Spartak Moscow.

Scholarship and theory 1934–

America's most prominent historian arguing the Second Republic's radicalization brought on the Spanish Civil War

The very expression 'historical memory' is an oxymoron, a fundamental contradiction in terms. Memory is intrinsically individual, subjective, and very frequently fallacious.

America's leading historian of modern Spain, Payne taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for 37 years and shaped the conservative interpretation of the Spanish Civil War through over twenty books on the Second Republic, Franco, and European fascism. His central thesis holds that the collapse of the Second Republic stemmed not from right-wing conspiracy but from the revolutionary radicalization of the Socialist-led left, reading the Civil War as a clash of revolution and counterrevolution. Since the 2000s, critics including Ángel Viñas, Helen Graham, and Paul Preston have charged his later work with excessive benevolence toward Francoism, yet Payne's revisionist framework remains an indispensable pole in Civil War historiography.

Scholarship and theory Affiliation unconfirmed 1934–2015 ○ Natural causes

The historian who called the conservative majority 'aggressively obedient'

27 May 1989, at the First Congress of People's Deputies, to the conservative deputies: "You here make up an aggressively obedient majority. … We are creating a Stalinist-Brezhnevite Supreme Soviet."

A historian who coined the phrase 'aggressively obedient majority' to describe the conservative bloc at the First Congress of People's Deputies in 1989. A scholar of the French Annales school, he led the de-Stalinization of Soviet historiography as rector of the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives (1986–1991) and served as co-chair of the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Sakharov and Yeltsin, driving democratic reform. In 1991 he founded the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), carving an independent intellectual space out of a former Party school, and spent his final decades openly criticizing the authoritarian drift of both Yeltsin and Putin.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1934–2019 ○ Natural causes

First to open the door to the cosmos, and the first to draw it from inside

"It was so quiet I could even hear my heart beat. I was surrounded by stars and was floating without much control." — the first human to walk in space, 18 March 1965.

A Siberian miner's son, Leonov became the first human to walk in space on 18 March 1965, floating outside Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes, and nearly dying when his suit ballooned so badly he had to bleed oxygen to squeeze back into the airlock. He was also the first artist in space, sketching an orbital sunrise with coloured pencils tethered together in weightlessness. A decade later, as commander of Soyuz 19, he led the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (the first US-Soviet docking in orbit) and forged a lifelong friendship with American commander Thomas Stafford. From 1976 to 1982 he served as deputy director of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and chief cosmonaut, overseeing the next generation. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and a major general of aviation, he produced over 200 space-themed paintings across a life that fused exploration with art.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1934–2019 ○ Natural causes

The cosmonaut who spent five days alone in orbit, setting a solo spaceflight record that still stands

On 18 June 1963, while Vostok 5 was still orbiting, the Party Central Committee reviewed his application and admitted him as a full member without a candidate period.

Soviet cosmonaut, the fifth to fly in space. Launched on 14 June 1963 aboard Vostok 5, he orbited Earth 81 times over nearly five days, setting a solo space endurance record that still stands. The original Vostok plan called for two women to fly simultaneously, but the mission was restructured as one woman and one man: Bykovsky launched two days before Valentina Tereshkova. He went on to command Soyuz 22 (1976) and Soyuz 31 (1978) with East Germany's first cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn, becoming the only Vostok/Voskhod-era cosmonaut to complete three spaceflights.

Government and administration 1934–2022 ○ COVID-19 complications

The nuclear physicist who demanded Chernobyl truth, hosted the meeting that dissolved the USSR, and called Gorbachev to tell him

Gorbachev asked, 'Have you thought about the international reaction?' I answered, 'Yeltsin is on the phone with Bush right now. Bush seems to be in favor!'

A nuclear physicist from Minsk, he was a professor at Belarusian State University and a specialist in radio electronics. In 1986, as a member of the Chernobyl investigation commission, he demanded the truth be made public against the Soviet cover-up and was removed, an experience that propelled him into politics. As chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet in 1991, he hosted Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk at the Viskuli hunting lodge for what was billed as a discussion of oil and gas supplies; when the conversation turned to dissolving the USSR, he was the first to say he would sign, and he was the one who telephoned Gorbachev to inform him the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The first head of state of independent Belarus, he was ousted in 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko's corruption allegations and spent his final decades in Minsk as an unyielding opposition elder.

Ideology and propaganda Soviet Union state institutions 1934–2023 ○ Natural causes

Propaganda-trained culture minister who executed glasnost-era cultural liberalization

In June 1989, the USSR Supreme Soviet reviewed Premier Ryzhkov's proposed cabinet and rejected Zakharov's renomination as culture minister. For the first time in decades, the rubber-stamp legislature told a sitting minister he was unqualified and sent him packing.

Trained as an economist, he rose through the Leningrad party organization's propaganda and agitation apparatus to reach Moscow, where Gorbachev appointed him Minister of Culture in 1986. His tenure oversaw a decisive shift in Soviet cultural policy: the publication of previously banned books, the relaxation of film censorship, and expanded autonomy for artistic creation. He personally mediated the acrimonious split of the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1989 the newly empowered Supreme Soviet rejected his renomination, the first major case of the legislature exercising real confirmation power over a sitting minister. After leaving office, he served as deputy premier of the Russian republic and later wrote memoirs judging the Gorbachev era a 'reign of missed opportunities.'

Scholarship and theory 1934–2023 ○ Natural causes

A liberal economist who helped design the transition from a planned to a market economy

In 1968, watching Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring, Yasin later recalled: 'It all became clear to me in 1968.'

Yevgeny Yasin was an economist who developed reform proposals for moving the late Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. As a co-author in the Shatalin group’s 500 Days programme, he helped formulate a blueprint for rapid market transition, then worked in the reforming Russian state after the Soviet collapse. As Yeltsin’s economy minister, he represented the liberal reform line while confronting disputes over the transition’s social costs and the state’s capacity. He later shaped economic policy education and public debate through the Higher School of Economics and the Liberal Mission Foundation.

Government and administration Soviet Union state institutions 1935–

A steadfast defender of Latvia's Communist Party at the Soviet Union's end

After the August 1991 coup attempt, he was arrested, becoming a jailed defendant after trying to preserve the Soviet union-wide order.

Alfrēds Rubiks was a Latvian communist politician formed by work in Riga's municipal administration and the Communist Party of Latvia. In the conflict between the Soviet system and Latvian independence, he sought to preserve the party's union-wide order, and his support for the August 1991 coup attempt brought arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. After his release, he continued that political line as leader of the Socialist Party of Latvia and later as a Member of the European Parliament.

Political and party leadership Communist Party of China 1935–1992 ↓ Arrested 1976 · illness

The Shanghai worker-rebel who rose “like a helicopter” to party vice-chairman, youngest of the Gang of Four

The youngest of the Gang of Four: from a Shanghai mill's militia office he led the November 1966 rebel headquarters and the 1967 Shanghai Commune, was second-ranked CCP vice-chairman by 38, and was seized in the 6 October 1976 coup.

From Jilin, he fought in the Korean War and became a security cadre at a Shanghai cotton mill. In 1966 he led the worker-rebel “Workers’ General Headquarters”, the driving force of the “January Storm” that seized the Shanghai government in 1967, and ran the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee with Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Picked by Mao as a successor of worker origin, he became party vice-chairman at the Tenth Congress in 1973, mocked as a “helicopter” for his rapid, inexperienced rise. Arrested with the Gang of Four in October 1976, he was sentenced to life in 1981 and died of liver disease in custody in 1992.

Government and administration Congo - Brazzaville state institutions 1935–2007 ○ Natural death

The World Bank official who steered the transition

Two days before the 2002 election he withdrew his candidacy, saying 'the conditions for a transparent vote were not guaranteed.'

A finance technocrat who served as the Congo's first treasurer-general after independence and later as a World Bank executive director. When the one-party system collapsed, the 1991 sovereign national conference elected him transitional prime minister on a fourth ballot, giving him executive power to steer the country toward multiparty elections. After the transition he founded the Union for Democracy and the Republic (UDR-Mwinda) and remained a leading opposition figure against Denis Sassou Nguesso.

Scholarship and theory 1935–2010 ○ Died

The British economic historian whose archival work recast postwar European recovery and integration

He read the 1947 crisis as a dollar payments crisis rooted in the strength of Europe's investment and production boom. As noted in the body, this is a paraphrase, and it drew sharp dissent from scholars who held that the Marshall Plan was economically necessary.

Born in Stoke-on-Trent on 19 January 1935, the only child of a Post Office employee, he read history at University College London and took a first-class degree in 1956, then a PhD at the LSE in 1960 under W. N. Medlicott on the German armaments industry in the Second World War. After posts at Edinburgh, the University of East Anglia and Stanford, he was Professor of European Studies at UMIST (1971–1983), Professor at the European University Institute (1983–1986) and Professor of Economic History at the LSE (1986–1996). Appointed official historian at the Cabinet Office in 1993, he wrote the first volume of the official history, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1987. He taught again at the EUI from 1996 to 2002 and died on 28 September 2010, aged 75, after a three-year illness; he was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Social movements and organizing Free Trade Unions of the Coast (WZZ) 1935–

An uncompromising organiser of August Solidarity

On 16 August 1980, after initiating the Elmor strike, he went to the Gdańsk Shipyard and joined the Inter-enterprise Strike Committee.

Andrzej Gwiazda was an electronics engineer and trade union organiser who helped build Gdańsk’s independent labour movement in the late 1970s. He co-founded the Coastal Free Trade Unions and supported clandestine publishing, preparing worker organisation outside state control. On 16 August 1980, after initiating a strike at Elmor, he reached the Gdańsk Shipyard and joined the leadership of the Inter-enterprise Strike Committee, co-authoring the 21 demands that shaped early Solidarity. Interned and imprisoned after martial law, he later broke with Lech Wałęsa’s negotiating course and became a leading opponent of the Round Table compromise.

Military command Soviet Union state institutions 1935–2000 ○ Heart attack

Second human to orbit Earth and builder of Soviet military space systems

"Once you have your arms and legs arranged properly, space sleep is fine... I slept like a baby." — the first human to sleep in orbit, Vostok 2, August 1961.

Soviet cosmonaut and military space commander. On 6 August 1961, aboard Vostok 2, he became the second human to orbit Earth; his 17-orbit, 25-hour flight, the first long-duration mission, proved humans could eat, sleep, and work in space. At 25, he remains the youngest orbital pilot in history. He was the first to manually pilot a spacecraft, the first to film Earth from orbit, and the first to experience space sickness. After his flight he led cosmonaut training for the Spiral orbital spaceplane, and from 1979 to 1991 served as First Deputy Chief of GUKOS/UNKS, the USSR Ministry of Defence space directorate, overseeing military space systems including the Marshal Nedelin-class tracking ships. Elected to the Russian State Duma as a CPRF member (1993–2000).

Diplomacy and international organization United Nations 1935–2014 ○ Sudden death

The Ecuadorian UN envoy who shuttled through six years of Geneva talks to frame the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan

Gorbachev decided to withdraw 'because of perestroika and diplomacy,' he later wrote in his memoir, 'reinforced by military pressure': not because of Stinger missiles alone.

Cordovez was an Ecuadorian diplomat and UN Under-Secretary-General who, as Pérez de Cuéllar's Personal Representative on Afghanistan from 1982, spent six years shuttling between the Pakistani and Afghan delegations in Geneva to broker the accords that framed the Soviet withdrawal. He entered the UN in 1963 as part of Raúl Prebisch's team that founded UNCTAD, rose to head the ECOSOC secretariat, and handled crises from the Iran hostage affair to the Iran-Iraq war. The Geneva Accords were signed on 14 April 1988; Cordovez, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, later served as Ecuador's foreign minister and UN ambassador.

Government and administration Soviet Union state institutions 1935–2024 ○ Natural causes

The final head of Soviet Moldavia's Communist Party

He called the 1991 banning of the Communist Party “an illegitimate act.”

Grigore Eremei was a Moldavian party and state official whose career reached its decisive moment at the end of the Soviet system. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia in 1991, he occupied the republic's leading party post while the Union was breaking apart and Moldova moved toward independence. After the party was dissolved, he continued in public life as a Moldovan diplomat and parliamentarian, linking a Soviet political career to the institutions of the independent republic.

Social movements and organizing Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1935–

The conservative apparatchik who founded the Russian republic's Communist Party

Gorbachev later said: 'I have known Polozkov for a very long time. He is an honest, decent fellow, but stupid and uneducated. Someone writes something for him, and he recites it.'

Founding First Secretary of the Communist Party of the RSFSR (1990–1991), the first republican-level Communist Party in Russian history, and the public face of the conservative anti-perestroika opposition within the CPSU. In May 1990 he contested Boris Yeltsin for the chairmanship of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet and led in early counts before the Politburo ordered him to stand down; weeks later the founding congress elected him to lead the new Russian party. A provincial apparatchik who had run the Krasnodar party organization for five years, he rose to the CPSU Politburo but was caught between reformers and hardliners, resigning after a heart attack in August 1991. He remained a symbolic elder of the Russian communist movement through the CPRF's consultative council after the party's dissolution.

Economy, finance and planning Soviet Union state institutions 1935–

The last Soviet trade minister, formed in consumer cooperatives

In 1987, he reported declining sugar reserves to the government, putting figures to the consumer crisis.

Kondrat Terekh was a Soviet economic administrator who rose from village-cooperative bookkeeper to become the last Minister of Trade of the USSR (1986–91) during perestroika. Bearing responsibility for all-Union consumer distribution until the planned economy's collapse, he stood at the front line of a consumer crisis of rationing and shortages.

Social movements and organizing Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1935–2006 ↓ Natural causes

The party apparatus gatekeeper who managed Gorbachev's documents, then betrayed him

On August 18, 1991, Boldin flew to Foros alongside Baklanov, Varennikov, and Shenin to deliver an ultimatum to Gorbachev — the man whose paper flow he had managed for a decade.

An economist by training who graduated from the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy and the CC Academy of Social Sciences, he worked in the Central Committee apparatus from 1961 and later served as agricultural department head and economic commentator at Pravda. In 1981 he became Gorbachev's assistant, and in 1987 he was appointed head of the CC General Department, the office controlling the entire document flow of the Politburo and Secretariat, adding the post of presidential chief of staff in 1990. During the August 1991 coup, however, he sided with the State Emergency Committee and was one of the four emissaries who flew to Foros to confront Gorbachev; arrested after the coup's failure, he was detained and then amnestied in 1994.

Security, intelligence and policing Soviet Union state institutions 1935–2012 ✕ Suicide

Last chief of Soviet foreign intelligence

On August 19, 1991, the day the GKChP coup began, Shebarshin 'demonstratively' played tennis all day.

The last chief of the KGB First Chief Directorate, a career officer who built decades of field experience in Pakistan, India, and Iran. He kept his distance from the August 1991 coup, served a single day as acting KGB chairman after its failure before Boris Yeltsin blocked him, and later chronicled Soviet foreign intelligence's final chapter in his memoirs.

Social movements and organizing Solidarity (Solidarność) 1935–2014 ○ Natural causes

A shipyard leader caught between two landmark agreements

“The chairman will be Jurczyk,” and the delegates answered the decision with applause.

Marian Jurczyk was a shipyard worker and labor leader who brought Szczecin's August 1980 strike into negotiations with the state. He signed the Szczecin Agreement on 30 August, accepting economic concessions without a guarantee of free trade unions, while the broader Gdańsk settlement the next day made the contrast between the two ports historically clear. Interned and later arrested under martial law, he went on to pursue an independent union course outside Lech Wałęsa's camp.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1935–2020 ○ Natural causes

Khrushchev's son and Chelomei's guidance-system engineer

During the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, Khrushchev tried to watch the historic moment through a telescope from Ukraine — with a KGB officer at his side.

Soviet rocket engineer and computer scientist. The son of Nikita Khrushchev, he developed guidance systems for cruise missiles and the Proton space booster at Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 design bureau, contributing to submarine-launched missiles, military spacecraft, Moon vehicles, and the Proton booster. At age 28 he was named a Hero of Socialist Labor and awarded the Order of Lenin in 1963. He later served as first deputy director of the Control Computer Institute (INEUM), and after moving to the United States in 1991 taught Cold War history and the Soviet space program at Brown University's Watson Institute while publishing several books on his father's era.

Political and party leadership Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) 1935–

A reform-minded party official caught between control and negotiation

On the first day of the strike, he ordered an immediate collection of on-site information, saying the security service reports could not be trusted.

Tadeusz Fiszbach was a Polish United Workers' Party official and diplomat who led the party organization in Gdańsk from 1975. During the August 1980 strike, he opposed a violent solution and entered the first talks with worker representatives, remaining involved on the government side after Mieczysław Jagielski arrived. His conciliatory management nevertheless collided with the party's effort to contain an independent union, and martial law pushed him out of central politics. He later served as deputy marshal of the Sejm and as ambassador to Finland and Latvia.